Derby Worx / Pro Tool benefits, applications and tip guide. July 2004

Pro Hub Tool

The Pro Hub Tool has 4 important uses in building a Pinewood Derby car and is the Cornerstone of performance.
  1. The Pro Hub Tool is used for sizing wheel hub bores. Hubs can vary in size as much as .010” in molded wheels. The Pro Hub Tool will allow the builder to ream their wheel hubs all to the same size or help in selecting 4 wheels with similar hubs, this is one if the most important steps in alignment because it allows the car to sit square with equal radius’s on all wheels [distance from the hub to the tread] even if all of the wheels are the same finished size, the hub variances will prevent the car from sitting square to the track.

  2. The Pro Hub Tool is used for squaring hubs. All hubs have defects from the molding process that prevents them from being mounted correctly on a mandrel. The Pro Hub Tool will square the in-board hub to the centerline of the wheel, which allows for the most accurate tread face finishing.

  3. The Pro Hub Tool is used for coning the hubs. All derby cars will benefit from coning the in-board hub for a reduction in body to hub friction. The Pro Hub Tool makes a even, polished cone that reduces body contact by 95% and can even be used to polish in graphite by adding a small amount in the dished end after coning for even more friction reduction.
 
Pro Body Tool
The Pro Body Tool is designed as a drilling aid to help create correctly placed axle holes on the body or correct mis-aligned slots in stock blocks when rules require their use.
  1. The Pro Body Tool easily places the axle holes perpendicular to the centerline of the car and ensures parallelism in the axles front to rear. This helps insure correct tracking of the car and aids in alignment.

  2. The Pro Body Tool locates all of the axle holes at the same height on the body which helps ensure the car is sitting square to the track, for a equally balanced car left to right and an aid in alignment.

  3. The Pro Body Tool helps guide the thin #44 drill bit required to drill axle holes preventing deflection for a more accurate job. This is something that can not be done with a drill press plus due to the clearance required in the quill assembly in most hobbyist and home use drill presses to make the press work, there will most likely be some run-out in the drill chuck, this makes the Pro Body tool the most accurate choice plus only a hand drill is required for the job.

  4. The Pro Body Tool reduces friction!!! By correctly placing the axles in the body a builder will not have to bend or tweak the axles to get the car to run straight. In all cases, if an axle needs a slight bend to correct alignment the axle placement is incorrect and the bent axle jeopardizes correct axle to hub alignment. Although it has corrected the alignment issue it has more than likely created a slightly higher friction between the axle and hub.
 
Pro Axle Press

 Most axles are NAILS!!! They are not straight and more than likely never will unless they are corrected, this is why we created the Pro Axle Press.
  1. The Pro Axle Press allows the builder with only a hammer to both straighten the shaft of the axle and square the head of the axle to the centerline of the shaft for an accurate axle.

  2. The Pro Axle press allows for easier and correct alignment that will require minimal to no alignment adjustment. Most alignment adjustments are required due to inaccurate parts giving inaccurate results. Straight Axles = Straight Cars.

  3. The Pro Axle Press Reduces Friction!!!! By creating a straight axle in an accurate hole on the body, the wheel will work in the most efficient manner. The fastest axle/wheel combination in a neutral position in which the wheel can FLOAT back and forth between the axle head and the body as is travels down the track. This combination creates the lowest posiable friction by doing several things. The axle contact to hub is full width. This actually creates a low friction environment and evenly disperses the load over the entire axle/hub combo. Weight x Area = Force and Force is friction in the hub. A bent axle will only contact the hub in limited spots creating higher friction/smaller spots and not allow the wheel to float back and forth. This usually allows the wheel to stay against the body or the axle head creating even more friction as the car travels down the track. A straight axle balances the force and equalizes the friction in the hub plus it allows the wheel to float back and forth and not staying on the body or axle head further reducing friction. STRAIGHT AXLES = MORE SPEED!

  4. The Pro Axle Press can be used to raise a wheel to create a 3-wheel car. 3 wheels down will almost always be fastest and the Pro Axle Press can be used to slightly bend an axle to raise a front wheel off of the track
 
Pro Wheel Shaver
 The Pro Wheel Shaver is one of the easiest, most efficient and cost effective ways to create perfectly round wheels from a molded standard wheel. Not all wheels are created equally, but with a Pro Wheel Shaver, they can be made Hi-Performance.
  1. Out of round wheels cause improper alignment at speed. This is something that is greatly mis-understood, but a car can assemble great and roll perfect on a test table but things happen at speed on the track. As a out of round wheel travels down the track and gains speed the axle will raise and drop which will cause the car pull to one side or oscillate depending on how bad or how many wheels are out of round. A fast car will be straight and VERY QUIET, noise is friction. By adding the Pro Wheel Shaver to the Pro Hub Tool a builder can shave the high spots off of molded wheels until they are completely round to the centerline of the hub, this removes all radial run-out to help make a more perfect wheel.

  2. The inside edge of a molded wheel in usually not straight. The most perfect aligned cars will still touch the center strip on the track 1 or 2 times on the way down and inside edge of the wheel will effect what happens when this contact is made. If the inner edge is not true, when contact is made it will cause the car to kickback, this will usually cause a radical deflection in the direction of the car. By using the Pro Wheel Shaver, a builder can true the inner edge of the wheel as well to lessen the effects of this contact. One good kick from guide strip contact can ruin the best of runs.

  3. Our testing has found that most anyone can easily make wheels that are with-in .001” diameter of each other.

  4. Tip: When using the Pro Wheel Shaver, is may take several adjustments to get all of the wheels round and the same size. When changing wheels, leave the blade at your setting and loosen the tool base at the Pro Hub Tool, rock it back to clear the blade and replace the wheel with the next one. This will allow you to get all wheels the same diameter on the finish cut. Also cut until you get all of the material posiable removed, the final cuts will be very light, fuzzy plastic shavings; this will give a great finish.
 
Pro Wheel Mandrel
The Pro Wheel Mandrel is designed with several benefits, which will help build better Pinewood Derby Cars.

  1. The Pro Wheel Mandrel is designed with a centering cone made into the screw assembly, this allows for the best centering of wheels for any form of tread treatment the builder prefers. This provides a great work center for lathe cutting wheels or finish polishing after using the Pro Wheel Shaver.

  2. The Pro Wheel Mandrel has a step cut in the body of the tool for mounting B.S.A. wheels in reverse for treatment and polishing of the inner edge.

  3. The Pro Wheel Mandrel has an easy grip screw that dose not require tools. This makes it easy for everyone to use and fast.
 
Pro Outer Hub Shaver
 This tool allows the builder to correct flaws in the outer wheel hub, making it parallel to the inner hub and improve tracking of the car. The Pro Hub Shaver is an attachment that can easily be added to the Pro Hub Tool.

  1. The outer hub under the axle head on most wheels is an area, which there has been no good way to correct or polish, the Pro Outer Hub Shaver will allow the builder to remove any high spots in this area that will allow the wheel to not kick when it makes contact with the axle head which in turn will help keep the car tracking straighter.

  2. By truing the outer hub, this will allow the builder to accurately mount the wheel in reverse on the Pro Mandrel and get accurate results like using the Pro Hub Tool. This way the builder can perform any wheel performance tasks they prefer.
 
Pro Bore Polisher
 Inner hub treatment has been limited until now. Many times we have a good wheel, but it just dose not spin that well or lacks what others have. Now this can be corrected and good wheels can be made to spin even better than ever.
The Pro Hub Polisher is designed to use a polishing media that is secured in a tool base for polishing the inner hub. By provide an equal pressure on the inner hub bore while being spun in a drill at a low speed, imperfections from molding are removed and break-in time of a new set of wheels is reduced. This helps in the mating of the surfaces of the axle to the hub.
 
Derby Worx RS Wheel

These are the world's most advanced Pinewood Derby racing wheels to date! Don't think that these are your typical thin cut wafer wheels. The RS's are C.N.C. machined from a solid piece of Derby Worx exclusive material with exacting precision. Even the wheel bore is milled round, not drilled, for unsurpassed precision.

Take a closer look and you'll notice that the RS's are not just plain flat discs. This is no mistake. This is a Patent-Pending Anti-Friction feature. This strip will limit the contact area of the wheel with the guide strip to a .002" or .0002 sq. inches (By comparision other waffer, razor or open class wheels that are flat on both sides have a contact area of .25" or .108 sq") . The contour then cuts back into the wheel to optimize weight, symmetry and balance. The hubs are also beveled to minimize contact area to the body.

These beauties weigh in at 1.17 grams each. This means it takes less energy to get the wheels rolling. The weight you save in the wheel gets put back into the body where it has the most benefit. NICE!

Each set comes with 5 precision Speed Axles.
 
 
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